When creating a component footprint I sometimes want something more complex than the standard options (circle, octagon, rectangle, rounded rectangle). I've found experimentally that I can add multiple pads with the same identifier e.g. for the middle pin and heatsink tab of a SOT-223 and CS recognises that they are both on the same net. But if I add extra copper (such as an arc) to the footprint then the net isn't assigned automatically and I have to edit the part in the PCB to fix this. Is there a 'proper' way to attach arbitrary copper to a pad in a library part?

I may be misunderstanding but if you want to create custom pad shapes for your component footprints you would have to do this in the PCB library editor. Using the fill feature under the home tab and then double clicking on it afterwards you should be able to assign a net to that copper.

That's more or less what I'm doing at the moment, but the problem is that the net name is likely to be different each time the part is used in a PCB. Pads automatically update the net name from corresponding pin in the netlist, but fills etc don't do this and so additional manual steps are needed. So my question is, is there a way, within the PCB library editor, to tell a copper feature that it should take the net name of a particular pin in the netlist (or the same net name as a given pad).

get the netlist clean and see if it continues, run the command update free primitives from component pads.

clear error markers and rerun DRC and see if it is clear for those parts, it should be Then, let us know if the issue comes back, and to try and record the sequence of events that leads to the disconnect. There MUST be a pad somewhere inside the construct that can receive a net, which can then be passed to the connected primitives If it is just copper, with no pad to receive a net, it wont work.

It appears that version 1.4.1 *does* pick up the correct netlist for fills that are attached to a pad, but if I set the netlist for a fill back to 'no net' then the above does correctly reassign it to the net of an attached pad.

When creating a component footprint I sometimes want something more complex than the standard options (circle, octagon, rectangle, rounded rectangle). I've found experimentally that I can add multiple pads with the same identifier e.g. for the middle pin and heatsink tab of a SOT-223 and CS recognises that they are both on the same net. But if I add extra copper (such as an arc) to the footprint then the net isn't assigned automatically and I have to edit the part in the PCB to fix this. Is there a 'proper' way to attach arbitrary copper to a pad in a library part?